Roper Acquires Childcare Software Firm Procare for $1.7 Billion

Roper Technologies has added childcare center software firm Procare Software to its stable of companies.

The Sarasota, Florida, company announced the $1.75 billion deal in a Thursday (Jan. 25) news release, saying the purchase was being funded through its revolving credit facility.

“Procare is a terrific business with clear niche market leadership, mission critical solutions, strong organic revenue growth, a high recurring and reoccurring revenue mix, outstanding customer retention, and excellent cash conversion,” said Neil Hunn, Roper Technologies’ president and CEO.

Based in Denver, Procare makes cloud-based software to manage of early childhood education centers. The company’s platform covers things like parent engagement, staff and teacher scheduling, classroom management, tuition billing, and payment processing, the release said.

PYMNTS spoke with Procare CEO JoAnn Kintzel in 2020, at a time when the childcare sector — like many others — was using the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to boost its digital efforts.

“The childcare industry represents a wide swatch of business, from small, in-home daycares, to large, multisite enterprises,” she said. “What makes this industry unique when it comes to payroll is that many organizations are pen-and-paper — meaning they do everything manually.”

Like many other industries, the childcare space is run by entrepreneurs and professionals who have “more work than time,” she added, especially within smaller organizations. Digitization and automation of back-office functions like payroll can help to shift more resources to more important operations — like caring for children.

Four years later, and companies of all stripes are wrestling with digitizing their payment processes, as noted here earlier this week.

Joint research by PYMNTS Intelligence and American Express found that 36% of companies still haven’t automated any part of their accounts payable or accounts receivable (AP/AR) processes. The ongoing reliance on manual processing by these firms might hold back their capacity to efficiently manage an increasing workload.

“A key factor contributing to firms’ reluctance to embrace automation is apprehensions about cost and complexity,” PYMNTS wrote. “Notably, over a third of companies have identified these concerns as the primary reasons for their hesitation.”

All the same, the report stressed that technology or automation partners can play a pivotal role in easing these concerns by offering support and guidance throughout integration.